There is more to love than hearts and flowers
by beesandbrews
Summary: Missing scenes from 'The Final Problem'. Once again, Sherlock has turned Molly Hooper's life upside down. What starts with a visit by security services, ends with a conversation about the nature of love.


Molly was tempted to ignore the insistent ringing of her front doorbell. Another long and sleepless night had passed and she was no closer to working out why she couldn't let go of her feelings for Sherlock, or why he would confess feelings of love for her. Case or no case, it just wasn't the sort of thing he did. The bell sounded again. With a sigh, she got out of bed, belting her dressing gown haphazardly around her waist before going to the door.

She peered through the peep-hole and frowned at the man and woman who stood on the other side. The both wore smart grey suits that were too expensively cut to be owned by any of the police officers with which she was acquainted. A feeling of foreboding began to gnaw at her stomach. Leaving the security chain fastened, she opened the door. "Yes? Can I help you?"

"Molly Hooper?" The female member of the team removed a photograph from her jacket pocket, examined it, and Molly, closely, before conferring silently with her partner. Apparently satisfied, she pressed an envelope through the gap in the doorway.

Mystified, Molly accepted and then inspected the envelope. There were no identifying marks on the outside. The message it enclosed was brief.

 _They are here on my instructions. Do as they say. – Mycroft Holmes_

Frowning deeply, and not understanding any of what was transpiring, Molly undid the chain and stepped aside to let the pair enter.

"Has anyone, known or unknown to you, been on the premises in the last month?" the male agent asked. Molly searched his face. It was a strong face and had good lines. He was stocky, and looked as if he might play some sport, rugby or football, when he wasn't turning up unannounced on doorsteps.

"Other than you?" Molly shook her head. Home was the place she retreated to at the end of the day. It was her respite from work, but she seldom entertained there. A quick drink at the pub around the corner from Bart's with colleagues, and the occasional spot of baby minding for John had been the extent of her social life for longer than she cared to admit. She couldn't remember the last time she had anyone, even a neighbour, round for so much as a coffee.

The agent nodded. The woman – tall, blonde, effortlessly pretty, and not much on idle chit chat – took a pair of small handheld objects that looked a bit like electronic stud finders from her handbag. She gave one of them to her partner before stepping away to survey the living space. She eyed the kitchen critically, turning her head this way and that, before training the device at the opposite end of the room. The male agent began his sweep in the kitchen, moving the scanner back and forth and over shelves and and other surfaces.

The sick feeling Molly had experienced upon reading Mycroft's letter began to grow more intense as she recalled how anxious Sherlock had sounded when he insisted that he needed her help for a case. She hugged herself tightly against a wave of nausea as the female agent said, "Here." and pointed to a spot under the bookshelf.

"Yeah, here too," the other agent replied.

"Someone bugged me?" Molly sank down upon the sofa, her legs gone suddenly to jelly. Someone said, 'We better exercise caution', but she couldn't determine which agent had spoken because a roaring noise had filled her ears. Although later she was sure it had been the male agent who had pulled her bodily to her feet again and half carried her out the front door, down the walkway, and into a waiting white van as several people moved quickly inside.

Sherlock's pleas and thoughts of the explosion at 221B Baker Street chased each other around her brain. The use of the phrase 'exercise caution' and the realisation that some of the people who had passed her on the path contained equipment suited to bomb disposal led Molly to the conclusion that Sherlock hadn't been play-acting. He had acted under duress, and his anxiety had been genuine. For reasons yet to be explained, one of his enemies had forced him to emotionally torment her, and he had done so, not willingly, but because it was necessary to keep her safe.

Shock chilled her to the core. Molly shivered in teeth chattering waves that had nothing to do with the temperature inside the van. Someone pressed a cup of tea into her hands and dropped a blanket over her shoulders. It hurt to breathe, her lungs were so constricted, but she made herself go through the motions, drawing shuddering breath after shuddering breath, forcing herself to calm down rather than give in to hysteria.

When the door panel slid back and the all clear sign was given it was almost an anti-climax. The disposal unit's team leader conferred in whispers with Mycroft's agents, and then passed over a small box.

"What did they find?"

More silent conferring. Finally the female agent spoke. "There were cameras, but no explosive devices."

Molly supposed she was meant to find that consoling. There had been no actual danger of a massive explosion ripping through her flat. But as the agents helped her out of the van and allowed her back inside, she found herself feeling anything but soothed. Hastily, she dressed and packed a bag. Until she understood fully what was going on around her a hotel seemed a better option, no matter what the security services said.

It was too early to go into work, but she went anyway. Once behind her desk, Molly pulled out her mobile. She rang Sherlock, and the call went straight to voicemail. A text went unanswered. Undeterred, she tried John, and once again went ignored. Running out of options, she hesitated over Greg Lestrade's number and finally pressed the call button. More voicemail. With nowhere else to turn, she rang Mrs Hudson.

Mrs Hudson sounded disappointed when she picked up, but her explanation assured Molly that the older woman hadn't meant to slight her. "I'm sorry, dear, I was hoping it was John. He sent a text a few hours ago. No explanation. He just wanted to let me know that they were all right."

Molly tried to hide her disappointment. She smiled into the phone. "I see," she replied, although she was still as much in the dark as she was before. She thanked Mrs Hudson and rang off, looked at the stack of work that had accumulated since her last shift, and dug into it. It was better to keep busy, she reasoned, then let her fears and anxieties about unknown enemies overwhelm her.

She was bent over a microscope, studying fibre samples removed from a murder victim's nasal cavity when her concentration was broken by a tapping on the door frame. Molly froze, the analysis she was conducting abruptly forgotten as she recognised the cadence of the knock. She took a moment to steel her nerves for a conversation she wasn't sure she wanted to have, and then looked up.

Sherlock's eyelids were red-rimmed and the whites bloodshot. He seemed exhausted to the core. His posture was slumped, as if his legs were ready to give way, and yet there was genuine warmth in his expression as he raised his hand in greeting.

Her heart clenched painfully. Involuntarily, Molly raised her hand to press it against her chest. She caught herself at the last moment, and placed it on the worktop instead, pushing down firmly on a stack of file folders to stop her fingers from trembling. "What's been going on, Sherlock?" she demanded.

Molly knew she sounded harsh, but she didn't care. She didn't like being an involuntary participant in Sherlock's life. It was one thing to go into his adventures eyes wide open, but blind was a different matter all together. "Why did those people of your brother's find cameras in my flat?"

Although he had dropped his hand, Sherlock was still propping himself up with the door-frame. Belatedly, Molly realised he was waiting for her to give him permission to enter her domain. She sighed, relenting a little. "Come in. Sit, before you fall down."

He folded his lanky body onto an adjacent stool and closed his eyes. It looked as if his considerable reserves of stamina were all but exhausted. Alarmed, Molly rose from her desk and took Sherlock's wrist between her fingertips to measure his pulse. The beat against her skin was erratic.

"My sister likes to run psychological experiments," Sherlock announced abruptly.

Molly stared at him, confused. "What sister? You never mentioned having a sister." Not that Sherlock had ever been especially forthcoming about his family or his personal life.

He smiled at her again and belatedly Molly remembered that she was still holding his wrist. Carefully, she let go and listened with numb horror as Sherlock poured out the story of Eurus Holmes. How she had orchestrated her release from the secure facility called Sherrinford. And how she had forced Sherlock, along with his brother Mycroft and John, through a sadistic series of trials meant to gauge their emotional and ethical responses.

"But why?" Molly asked. "Why would she do such a thing?"

Sherlock shrugged. "Her mind is different to yours. Different even from mine. She is so far removed from normal human responses and experiences that we were no more than rats in her laboratory."

"That's horrible," Molly replied, and meant it. She felt nearly as numb as she had while Mycroft's people were doing their work. She couldn't wrap her mind about what Sherlock and the others had been through. It made her own issues seem trivial.

She felt an outpouring of compassion for Sherlock. Although he had survived the ugly experience, he seemed frustrated rather than victorious, and that wasn't like him. Here was a man who had endured an encounter with someone whose intellect was far more ruthless than his own, and yet he still seemed to find himself wanting.

"Through her surveillance, Eurus determined that you were vulnerable." Sherlock hesitated. "Your affection for me made you so."

Molly's heart began to beat faster as Sherlock finally started to explain her part in his trial. She forced herself to regard him calmly as he, who was normally never at a loss for words, struggled. "We don't have to talk about this. Sherlock, it's all right."

He looked up at her, and a little of the old fire was back in his eyes. "No, Molly, it's not all right. What Eurus made me do – "

Some things could be swept underneath the carpet and be forgotten. Apparently Sherlock felt this wasn't one of them. But if they were going to talk of love then they needed to do so with the proper perspective.

"In the time that I have known you, Sherlock," Molly blurted into the awkward silence, "I've seen you in love twice. Once was with that woman, Irene Adler, who died. The other – " She couldn't finish. She didn't need to. What was relevant was that she knew that she hadn't ever captured Sherlock's heart.

"I believe... I still believe – " Sherlock stared down at the scatter of paperwork that covered the worktop, avoiding Molly's gaze. "– that I am ill-suited for romance. My work suffers, and as a result, I put those around me, those I care for, in danger." He glanced up, met her eyes briefly, and then looked away again. "But you are right. I have loved, neither wisely nor well. I have also learned that despite my efforts to divorce myself from sentimentality, that I am not immune from caring for others." He looked up again at Molly and gave her a rueful smile.

"Eurus spied on you. She knew it would hurt you to say what I have known for a very long time."

"Sherlock – " Molly warned. He had broken her heart repeatedly, she didn't need for him to do it yet again. "You did... You did what you had to do to protect me. You saved my life and I am grateful. Can't we leave it at that?"

If only she could blot out the memory of the second 'I love you', the one that had sounded like an epiphany. The one that had made her heart shatter in a thousand pieces because she knew he would never say those words to her like that again. Tears started to fall unbidden. Molly wiped at them fruitlessly, but they kept coming. She turned away, intent on escaping before she humiliated herself further. Despite the dull haze of grief that shrouded her senses, she heard the sound of metal scraping the tiles, and saw Sherlock rise. He crossed to her, took hold of her arm, and then drew her towards him until she was cradled against his chest.

"I never wanted to hurt you, Molly. I only wanted to keep you safe. You're important to me. You are the person I depend on to always be honest with me and to keep me accountable. Not even John manages to do that."

As her tears soaked Sherlock's shirt front, Molly listened to his heart race. He wasn't any more comfortable admitting his feelings than she was hearing them, but he was making the effort and trying to make things right between them. A thought struck her and she frowned as it occurred to her she had never seen him so emotionally vulnerable, not even when he was at his lowest point after John's marriage to Mary Morstan, and he had started using hard drugs again.

Sherlock sighed heavily. "I think even though I deleted Eurus from my memory, she left a void in my subconscious. One I've used you to fill."

Molly looked up and searched Sherlock's face, trying to comprehend what he was saying to her but failing to understand. "What do you mean, Sherlock?" she asked quietly.

"I mean, Molly, that when I am in trouble, you reach out automatically. When I have used poor judgement or failed to keep to the standards you have set for me, you berate me, without fear or hesitation. Your door is always open to me. Even when, at times, it would be wiser if you slammed it in my face." He gave her a very lopsided smile. "In short, without realising it, you do all the things that I believe a loving sister would do, and I have embraced you as part of my family."

 _Sister?_

 _Family?_

The words chased themselves around her brain as Molly considered her past interactions with Sherlock. The times when she had slapped him because he had been foolish, and everyone around him had impotently wrung their hands, unsure or unwilling how best to get through to him. The times when he had come to her lab and they had worked side by side, without talking other than about the work, and Molly had the sense that her presence was all Sherlock had needed to regain his equilibrium. The times when he had been thoughtless or cruel, and she believed he hadn't noticed her hurt, but days later he had showed up with a coffee in hand and insisted on taking her to dinner, because it turned out he had noticed after all.

 _Sherlock loved her_. Maybe not in the hearts and flowers sort of way, but he had explained his reasons why he would never intentionally become embroiled in romance, and Molly understood his reasoning. Sherlock was a man who felt deeply, no matter how loud or often he protested otherwise. He loved the best way he knew how.

Molly let that sink in, and the pain in her heart eased. Hearing him admit that he cared for her, even if it was in a familial way, without him being threatened or otherwise coerced, was a greater comfort then she could have anticipated.

She wiped her face dry with the back of her hand. After his confession Sherlock seemed even more wrung out, if that was even possible, than he had upon his arrival. In an attempt ease his obvious discomfort, Molly mock-scowled up at him. "You look done in. You need to go and get some rest."

The edges of Sherlock's mouth curled upward in a tentative smile, and the light seemed to come back into his eyes. "Then I'm forgiven for what I put you through?"

Sherlock had only been the weapon. It was Eurus, a woman Molly didn't even know, who had tried to hurt her. She nodded her head and then carefully disentangled herself from his embrace.

"I should be going." Sherlock dug into his coat pocket and pulled out an envelope. He handed it to Molly.

She looked askance at it. "More instructions from Mycroft?"

Sherlock shook his head. "This is from me. Open it."

Inside were keys and a sheet of paper with a random string of numbers, symbols and letters, plus instructions on how to set an alarm code.

Molly was understandably confused. "What's this?" she asked.

Sherlock pushed his hand through his fringe, as if he were overcome by a wave of uncharacteristic shyness. "I went to your flat. After I made sure that Mycroft's people hadn't missed any bugs, I changed your locks and installed an alarm system of my own devising. I thought that perhaps, after having your privacy violated, some enhanced security measures might make you feel more at ease."

Molly wasn't sure she wanted to know how Sherlock had got inside to do everything he had done, she was just glad he had. "Thank you," she stammered, before stretching up on her toes to kiss his cheek.

Once again the atmosphere threatened to grow awkward as they regarded one another. Molly turned away first. It was close enough to the end of her shift, and there was nothing on her desk that couldn't keep. She put away her files and exhibits while Sherlock watched, and then collected her handbag and coat from the cupboard. "Let me see you out," he offered.

She nodded, glad of his company. They walked down the corridor together, occasionally stealing glances at one another. Molly noticed Sherlock surreptitiously studying her face and body language, no doubt to assure himself that he was truly back in her good graces. She caught his eye and smiled up at him. He, in turn, bumped his arm against her shoulder and then linked their hands.

It felt right, and for the first time in days, Molly found herself at ease. She had been wrong. There was a place in Sherlock's heart that she could call her own.

end


End file.
